


Enough to Go By (for Yuletide)

by bonibaru



Category: Dark Is Rising Sequence - Susan Cooper
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-23
Updated: 2017-03-23
Packaged: 2018-10-09 11:10:39
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,798
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10410840
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bonibaru/pseuds/bonibaru
Summary: This is one memory that Will can give back to Bran.





	

It's not his first trip to New York City, but Will still isn't used to being surrounded by buildings tall enough to block the sky. It makes him feel closed in, even as he steps out of the back of the overheated car into the brisk winter air; he has to crane his neck upward to read the sign that tells him he's come to the right place. He thanks the limousine driver in the man's native tongue, which earns him a smile and a wave as the black car is swept away by the unceasing tide of traffic. The windowless gallery door looks heavy and imposing, but some hidden mechanism swings it open effortlessly as he approaches.

There are deep grooves in the dark wood of the front desk, like lines on a weathered face, strangely comforting amid the smooth shine and newness of the other lobby fixtures. Will traces them with his fingers while the bored attendant takes his coat and ticket. He doesn't meet Will's eyes, just waves him toward a broad staircase on the other side of the lobby, at the foot of which stands a nondescript printed sign: Atrium A: Chelsea Contemporary Holiday Collection; Atrium B: Forum - The Healing Power of Art; Atrium C: The Best of Britain: Barnabas Drew.

Inside the crowded reception hall, Will weaves his way through the groups of chattering people, past tables wrapped in white cloth and covered in discarded hors d'oeuvres trays and empty champagne flutes. The decor is monochrome, trendy and impersonal, perfectly metropolitan. Not for the first time in his life, Will feels completely out of place.

Bran, on the other hand, fits in much more easily, although Will still spots him within seconds. His unusual coloring doesn't stand out as starkly in a melting-pot where individuality is celebrated and hair tint comes in all shades of the rainbow (and the spectators at this gallery have taken full advantage of the spectrum, Will notices) - but even in the dim light, Bran glows like a firebrand, his pale skin and white hair offset by the charcoal gray roll-neck jumper and dark trousers he has chosen over more formal attire.

In a crowd, Bran always seems inexplicably taller to Will; his chest seems broader, his carriage more regal. Will studies him for a few more blissfully uninterrupted minutes: the intense gaze of his tawny eyes as he addresses a group of men and women standing alongside him, the tapered shape of his fingers as he gestures at the painting they're discussing. Will catalogues everything he sees; it's not something he can help. He is the Watcher after all, he tells himself, and he surely wouldn't be doing his job if he didn't make note of even the tiniest details, down to the two security agents discreetly shadowing Bran's every move, and the gentle curl of hair at the nape of Bran's neck.

It's been more than a month since Will has seen his lover, one of their longest separations to date. The world press has been buzzing for months with speculation that the UK's youngest-ever UN Ambassador is the top candidate for Secretary General when the current office holder retires at the end of the next year, and Will, though he makes every effort to maintain a properly neutral stance on global affairs, sincerely hopes for Bran's sake - and for the world's - that it will come to pass. But as a consequence, Bran's trips to America have been occurring more and more frequently and lasting for longer periods of time. Will's usually kept busy enough with his own work; he's come to this event to support his old friend Barney. But leaving tomorrow won't be easy, and not just because of the jetlag.

Will can see that Bran has the full attention of the group he is speaking with as they move from one painting to the next. He envies this sometimes, the easy manner in which Bran addresses others, his natural leadership skills. When Bran speaks, his words resonate with energy. His speeches to the General Assembly can be breathtaking in the way that all things passionate are, and it's no surprise that his political career is spiraling upward. Will follows destiny, he thinks quietly to himself, while Bran shapes it. Will has been a pawn to a higher calling since his eleventh birthday, bound to the rules of Light and Dark; Bran suffers no such restriction, actively directing his own fate and that of others, navigating the gray areas that encompass the world of men.

The rest of Will's thoughts scatter as Bran turns and sees him, his face lighting up with a brilliant smile. Will is already walking toward him before Bran can lift his hand to wave. The security agents have apparently been well-briefed; they take note of Will's approach with nothing more than a blink of the eyes.

"Took you long enough," Bran chides as he presses Will's hand in welcome. "You missed all the food."

"A plane can only fly so fast, you know."

Bran's eyes crinkle with a familiar half-smile. "There's got to be someone I can call about that."

"There you are!" a voice calls out behind them before Will can think of an acceptable response. Will turns around just in time to be engulfed in a giant bear hug. "I'm so glad you came!" Barney cries, squeezing Will almost too hard.

"Wouldn't have missed it for anything," Will mumbles around a mouthful of Barney's sleeve. A petite young woman wearing a sparkling diamond on her left hand, smiles at him over Barney's shoulder. He thinks one of the security agents might be smirking at him.

The next half hour passes in a blur of introductions (Barney's fiance, Jill, is an artist as well), handshakes, invitations to dinner after the show, and exclamations over various paintings until the exhausted group finally make it to a small alcove where they can linger and talk undisturbed. Jill replenishes their drinks while Barney talks about the home they are making in New York, about settling down, about having his own studio and starting a family. The glow of happiness in his friend's eyes warms Will from the inside. He knows how Barney feels; he thinks that his own eyes must glow like that every time he looks at Bran. But neither Bran nor himself will be settling down any time soon - too many tasks ahead for Bran, too many secrets to guard for Will.

"And what is our Will doing with himself these days?" Barney finally asks, as the evening begins to wind down and the crowd slowly thins out.

"Same as always, what else," Bran answers teasingly before Will can think of what to say. "Locking himself away in his cosy little office and poking his nose around in other people's stories until the moon is high and there's only me to break the door down and get him to take a bite of supper." As he speaks, Bran stabs idly at a slice of lemon floating in the remains of his drink with a thin black stirrer. A few fleshy pieces separate and spiral down, clinging momentarily to the ice cubes, then slowly slipping off and continuing their inexorable descent. The track lights around the edge of the ceiling cast smoky shadows in the clear liquid. Will looks reluctantly away from the smoothness of Bran's hand curved around the glass.

"Stories?" Jill asks curiously. "Are you a writer, Mr. Stanton?"

"Archaeologist, actually," Will replies. It's a not-lie that rolls as smoothly from his lips as his own name these days. "Leave no footprints for others to follow," Merriman had told Will once, years before. But while Will cannot directly affect history, he still must prevent others from digging around in places that they shouldn't. His reputation as a knowledgeable and wealthy, if eccentric, private collector and medieval history enthusiast permits him to do just that, quietly, and without attracting undue attention. It doesn't hurt that he has a powerful and well-connected ally in Bran - much of what Will does goes unquestioned, which is exactly what he needs in his line of work: protecting the world's hidden objects of power from greedy, prying hands. Over the years that they have been together, Bran has learned not to question Will too closely on where he goes and what he does. But Bran's work keeps him busy enough to fill up their dinner conversations - when they happen to be together for a meal, that is.

"Will here can speak with authority on far too many subjects - if you want to know anything about anything, he's your man, love!" Barney exclaims, clasping his shoulder so tightly and with such pride that Will can't help but smile. The simple fact is that Will is so adept at storytelling simply because he doesn't have a story of his own that he can tell to anyone. Bran doesn't remember that, of course, but he knows Will better than anyone else and it's difficult to keep things away from his sharp gaze - Will has to turn his head a bit so Bran won't see the tinge of sadness in his expression. It's hard enough sometimes to keep things hidden from his lover; if Bran ever really wants to press him on his secrets, Will isn't sure what might come of it.

As they make their way to the door, Bran stops in front of the painting that he had been admiring when Will arrived. Springtime in Wales, Will thinks; a sunlit green hillside covered with daisies, the yellow and white flowers dotted like bright stars under a perfect blue sky. The softness of the colors and the lay of the light stirs Will's memory, and he knows why Bran is so entranced by it.

"What do you think of this one, Will bach?" Bran asks softly.

Sometimes, in moments of weakness, Will wishes that Bran could remember everything, that he hadn't made the choice to give up his memories. But he hadn't wanted to keep the memories if they would make him "different" ... They'd been so much younger, both of them, but Bran had had a shining inner strength before the Light came to him, and kept it even after the Light withdrew. No matter what, he was Bran Davies, through and through, always.

Will never wants to take that amazing sense of identity away from Bran. He's had to resist the temptation to return Bran's memories more than once, but doing so would cheapen Bran's sacrifice, he knows. Burdening him with knowledge of a past that is lost to both of them now - it wouldn't make things any easier for either of them.

"It's lovely," Will answers simply. "But it doesn't seem to be for sale."

"It might be, you never know," Barney says coyly. "Depends who wants to buy it."

Bran lingers a moment, traces his fingers down the edge of the frame. Will stands quietly, in the way that he best knows how, watching something distant flickering behind Bran's amber eyes. A summer afternoon, two boys on the cusp of adulthood, stuffed to the gills with food and laughing about daisy chains ... the beginning of a lifetime of putting each other second to destinies and avoiding difficult questions.

But the moment passes, and Bran shakes his head and puts his hand back in the pocket of his trousers. "Can't very well hang it in a hotel room, can I?" he says. "And if Will folds it up in his luggage, we'll never get the crease out. T'won't look nice in the den." They turn to walk out, Bran and Barney already smiling and laughing about something else, but as he follows Will sees that the crinkle isn't there around Bran's eyes.

***

Will looks down out of the hotel window at the gray winter streets below. It's getting warmer out instead of colder; a low early morning fog hangs over the dimming street lamps, making misty halos around their fading lights. Manhattan is an island after all, Will remembers, and he imagines that if he could open the window, he might be able to smell the sea.

Bran comes softly up behind him, wrapping his arms around Will and nuzzling the back of his neck. Bran's chest is still warm from the heat of the bed and is soothing against the chilled skin of Will's back. It's familiar, comforting, this feeling of Bran pressed against him, and he swallows the lump that threatens to form in the back of his throat. "You can stay longer," Bran says. "We can still change the flight."

"I have that meeting at the museum on Tuesday morning," Will reminds him.

"Right." Bran sighs softly. "Mysterious artifacts wait for no man." Bran's arms tighten around Will's waist as he clasps one wrist with the other hand. Will puts his hand over Bran's and squeezes gently. In the early days, loving reassurances would have come so much more easily for both of them - before he had to come to terms with sharing Bran with the rest of the world, before Bran had to accept that there were some secrets that Will could not share.

"I'd stay longer if I could." Will can't quite keep the melancholy from his tone, and he knows it comes through by the way Bran's body tenses almost imperceptibly.

Bran's hands move to Will's shoulders, pressing gently to turn Will around until they are facing each other.

"I know you would, Will. I know." His eyes hold Will's gaze as he slips his hand into Will's and entwines their fingers. "Do you know why I was looking at that painting tonight? The one with the flowers, when we were leaving?"

Will nods. "I remember that day."

"These places that I go, they're all like that painting. Pretty, and of course I like New York when I'm here, but -"

"But you don't really want to hang it over the couch?"

Bran laughs. His lips are soft, his kiss warm against Will's cheek. "Everywhere I go, I see things that remind me of you. That painting reminded me of you, how you said you wanted to protect me. If I bought it, I thought, it would make it easier to be away from you so much ..." he trails off, looks away, suddenly hesitant. The grip of his hand softens in Will's, like he's about to pull away.

An uncertain Bran Davies is something Will doesn't see often, and it suddenly dawns on him that this relationship isn't one-sided, like it feels sometimes when he's lying alone in the dark watching for a glimpse of Bran on CNN. Will isn't the only one that's grown lonely over the last months of travel and politicking. Will knows better than anyone that loving bonds are the strongest thing on earth, stronger than any magic - stronger than any doubt. No distance is too great for them to surmount. But he'd somehow let that slip away, let it fall into a dusty corner of his mind, hidden behind simmering feelings of guilt and inadequacy and the hurt of separation. But now it fills him with warmth and a strange sense of pride at the realization: Bran isn't escaping his destiny - he's forging a new one, growing into a legend of his own making. And it's Will Stanton that Bran has chosen to stand by his side on the road.

It's strange, wonderful, this renewed feeling; remarkable that after all their time together, the heart of Will Stanton the man still mirrors that of Will Stanton the Old One. The Pendragon doesn't have to be awake for Will to want to watch over Bran, stay by his side, supporting him, loving him. And now he can see the truth of it, suddenly, clearly, echoed in every line of Bran's body as they stand there together: the future, the past, all rolled into one lifetime, the endless possibilities stretching away before them like the boundless sky.

Maybe Bran's forgotten it too, how strong they really are together, but this is one memory that Will can give back to him. Will takes Bran's chin in his fingers and raises his face, looks into his eyes with a sudden joy. "I love you," he tells him. "No matter where you are, no matter how far away, I'm always with you. Always. You belong to the world, not just to me, I understand that and I accept it. But I'm always going to be the one who loves you. Nothing's ever going to change that."

Seeing the worry lines easing from Bran's beautiful face, Will vows not to forget again. He won't doubt Bran - or himself - any more.

Will kisses Bran softly, and prays that it's going to be enough.


End file.
